AusGamers: Red Dead Redemption Hands-On Preview

Like some western anti-hero, Rockstar have been dragging us behind the proverbial horse, lassoed and tearing face-first through the dirt when it comes to previewing their upcoming open-plains opus, Red Dead Redemption. However, we managed to chew through our ropes while they were asleep at a campfire and get some proper hands-on with the game in between mouthfuls of fried beans. Red Dead Redemption is fast becoming the absolute benchmark for not only this budding genre, but for sandbox/openworld games period.

There were a few key thing we were readily looking forward to testing with Redemption, specifically horse-riding and gun-play, and we can tell you both handle spectacularly. It's a point that prior to getting our mits on the test 360 controller (the platform we previewed the game on), our Rockstar rep gave a quick catch-up; revealing the development strides the game is making in both visual tweaks and immersive gameplay machinations. This is important because Red Dead Redemption, despite being of the openworld formula, is very much unlike any other Rockstar production.